248 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



interfered very seriously with our comfort. There is a 

 tiny creature called the Mocuim, scarcely visible except 

 for its bright vermilion color, which swarms all over the 

 grass and low growth here. It penetrates under the skin 

 so that one would suppose a red rash had broken out over 

 the body, and causes excessive itching, ending sometimes 

 in troublesome sores. On returning from a walk it is 

 necessary to bathe in alcohol and water, in order to allay 

 the heat and irritation produced by these little wretches. 

 Mosquitoes are annoying, piums are vexatious, but for 

 concentrated misery commend me to the Mocuim. 



October 23d. We left Teffe on Saturday evening on 

 board the Icamiaba, which now seems quite like a home 

 to us ; we have passed so many pleasant hours in her 

 comfortable quarters since we left Para. We are just 

 on the verge of the rainy season here, and almost every 

 evening during the past week has brought a thunder-storm. 

 The evening before leaving Teffe we had one of the most 

 beautiful storms we have seen on the Amazons. It came 

 sweeping up from the east ; these squalls always come 

 from the east, and therefore the Indians say " the path of 

 the sun is the path of the storm." The upper, lighter 

 layer of cloud, travelling faster than the dark, lurid mass 

 below, hung over it with its white, fleecy edge, like an 

 avalanche of snow just about to fall. We were all sitting 

 at the doorstep watching its swift approach, and Mr. Agassiz 

 said that this tropical storm was the most accurate represen- 

 tation of an avalanche on the upper Alps he had ever seen. 

 It seems sometimes as if Nature played upon herself, repro- 

 ducing the same appearances under the most dissimilar 

 circumstances. It is curious to mark the change in the 

 river. When we reached Teffe it was rapidly falling at 



